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The defamation lawsuit against Baby Reindeer creators and the star Richard Gadd is on the line as the Scottish woman stalking series is up on Netflix.
Despite the federal judge in California initially refusing to file the defamation lawsuit against Netflix and Richard, the real-life Scottish woman does not want to give up. The judge said that the defamation case does not count here since Baby Reindeer has presented itself “as a fact” and not a representation of Gadd’s own reviews. At the beginning of the show, the disclaimer “this is a true story” says it all, Judge R. Gary Klausner wrote.
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Fiona Harvey, the real-life Scottish woman who stalked Richard Gadd, alleged that there are “several key differences” in what has been shown on Netflix in the form of series character Martha, who stalked the protagonist, Gadd’s character, Donny Don.
Why Fiona Harvey wants a defamation lawsuit against Baby Reindeer?
She said people wrongly concluded from Baby Reindeer series that:
- Martha was convicted twice for stalking, for which she spent years in jail. It also includes stalking of a policeman.
- Sexually assaulting Donny in an alley
- Violently attacking Donny and gouging his eyes with her thumbs
- Stalking Donny and sitting outside his home 16 hours a day
Allegations for defamation lawsuit not accepted
Judge R. Gary Klausner confirmed that these allegations from Gadd were “substantially true”. It is a term commonly used in a lawsuit for defamation that supports the fact that the claims from the opposing party are true.
To defend against the defamation lawsuit Baby Reindeer, Netflix also wanted to clarify its side. It said that although Fiona Harvey has not been convicted twice, she has been imprisoned for five years for the said allegations. Besides, she has touched Gadd’s various parts of body for which he was uncomfortable and was also “without consent”.
Still, Judge R. Gary Klausner disagreed with Netflix’s accusations against Fiona Harvey regarding the series scenes. The judge was of the view that Netflix’s argument that there is a difference between stalking and being convicted to be jailed does not hold true. Moreover, the inappropriate touching scenes and gouging eyes were also not true to that extent.
Gadd’s confusion about Baby Reindeer
For the matter, Judge R. Gary Klausner accounted for the defamation case with confusion about Gadd’s unease cited in The Sunday Times’ report where he was concerned about representing Baby Reindeer as entirely true. He even mentioned that the stage play from which the Netflix series is adapted also billed itself as “being based on a true story”.
Although the judge gave a green light for a defamation lawsuit against Baby Reindeer regarding the intentional infliction of emotional distress to proceed, he did not allow for Harvey’s negligence, gross negligence, and right of publicity claims along with punitive charges that she had tried to sue Netflix and the creators for.
Netflix’s spokesperson said lawsuit for defamation is not justified
One of Netflix’s spokespersons told that they want to add no comments on the defamation case yet since “we intend to defend this matter vigorously and to stand by Richard Gadd’s right to tell his story”.
Gadd wanted to tell his story of how it feels to be stalked as a man by a crazy woman who raids him with 40,000 emails and hundreds of hours of voice messages each day. Even if he did not reply to them, they kept coming and never stopped. It was torture for him every day, waking up to another day of the same mental torment, feeling helpless that he had no way of escaping her.
Predictions about the lawsuit against Netflix
The show topped the Netflix most-watched lists globally after its debut in April. Soon, the real-life characters of the story were detected by the online spies. Fiona Harvey decided to file a complaint in the District Court for the Central District of California in June for seeking damages totaling $170 million.
Gadd asked the people via a UK newspaper to maintain the privacy of the character, however the request went unheard.
He said that the story is “very emotionally true…but we wanted it to exist in the sphere of art, as well as protect the people it’s based on”.
P.S. Jessica Gunning played the role of Martha in Baby Reindeer for which she won an Emmy award.
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